No, you can’t, Ify almost tells her.
“—but the other stuff. Ify, I just don’t know what to do. You’re the only person I could think to come to. Especially since . . .”
“Since what?”
“He’s . . . well, in his entrance interview, he said the reason he was seeking asylum was that he was fleeing the Biafran War.”
Ify allows herself precisely two seconds of shock before she makes a determined frown. She will do what she needs to do. If not for Amy, then at least for this poor boy. But no more. She will not build this boy’s future for him. Only point him in the right direction. Still, she can’t fully push past her anger, so she only nods perfunctorily. When Amy says, “Thank you,” Ify replies with a curt “Sure, Amy,” then shuts off the transmission.
CHAPTER
4
When I am being refreshed by one of the robots, I am watching the other robots chop chop at the ground. They are standing in straight rows, and every hole they are making in the ground is the same. Same long, same wide. And I am noticing the bodies that once were covering me so much that I could not breathe. The memory is fresh in my mind and in my body, so that when I close my eyes, I still am seeing the darkness I am seeing when I first wake up and the robots pull me free. Some robots are standing in the distance, farther than I am seeing with my regular eye, but I am being able to be zooming in, and I am seeing them standing by caravan of trailers that is being made out of dirty metal.
One of the robots that is close to me is having hose with needle poking into my arm, and a different kind of water is flowing like river into me. Not river that is just water, but river with stones and sticks and other tiny things in it. It is feeding me.
This one robot is feeding me, and it is speaking to me at the same time. It is not moving its mouth, but I am still hearing words.
You’re a child of war, the robot is telling me, and when the robot is telling me that I am child of war, I am remembering all kind of things.
I am running through the rain in a too-big shirt and my face is angling to the sky and I am feeling fast and I am smiling.
I am walking on a dirt road to church, and Mama is holding my hand as we are walking, and everywhere is light and bright colors—the leaves on the trees, the red clay of the earth, the colors on Mama’s gown. And we are sitting in a church pew, and the pastor is speaking in loud voice, and Mama is smiling.
I am sitting on the ground in a home, and my legs are being crossed, and I am wearing green shorts. I am talking to my brother—I am not knowing how I am knowing he is my brother—and there is a bowl of chin-chin between us, and I am reaching into it, and I am eating it, and it is being crunchy and sweet in my mouth. I am trying to say something to my brother but I am not being able to say words, and he is laughing and holding his stomach and laughing and I am laughing too.
“Stop that-oh!” someone is shouting in another room. “Are you trying to choke on your food? Stop laughing with your mouth full before you fall down and die.”
And my brother is saying, “Fall down and die” in funny accent like our father, and it is making me to be laughing even more.
None of these thing is feeling like war in my body.
You’re a child of war, the robot is saying into my mind again.
When the robot is saying this, I am remembering a time when there is being blood everywhere on the road, shining in the light the sun is giving it in front of a military outpost. The outpost is messy because me and other soldiers who are looking like me with too-big helmet and too-big gun and too-big knife are running through it and burning thing and breaking table and collecting enemy items. And we are making circle—me and the soldier who is looking like me—and there is a man in the middle of the circle, and water is falling from his eye, and he is saying thing but it is not English. It is not any language I am understanding. And one soldier who is looking like me is taking the man’s arm and dragging him to tree stump and laying arm on tree stump and holding it still. And I am having big stick in my hand. It is being as thick as my arm but I am not having problem holding it. And the soldier who is looking like me—small small child like me—is looking at me and even though his lip is not moving, he is telling me things and I am understanding. And because I am understanding, I am raising stick high above my head and I am swinging it down on the man’s hand. Up and down, up and down, up and down, and man is screaming so big it is thundering in my head but I am swinging stick up and down, up and down, up and down until hand is gone and the sun is making the blood to shine everywhere.
I am remembering holding gun as big as me. I am remembering how the butt of the gun is feeling against the inside of my shoulder and how it is a comforting thing. I am remembering how the feeling starts out cold but after you are shooting it is feeling warm and my whole body is feeling warm like it will always be feeling warm.
We are in jungle and it is being dark outside and machete is slapping my back like it is angry with me while we are walking. My body is feeling like electricity is running all through it, and the man I am calling Commandant is ahead of us in jungle and he is being like second father to me because my first father is lying in hole in ground with many holes in his body and many cuts, so he is no longer looking like man.
I am remembering both of these things—eating sweet chin-chin with my father and watching him lying in ground with many cuts—and I am sadding.
The robot is pulling back the cord from my arm. And putting bandage on it, and I am remembering wearing soiled bandage when I am being child of war, but this bandage is like the color of my skin and smelling like hospital. I am trusting the robot will not hurt me.
Buzz buzz is sounding all around me. It is the robots plugging their cords into some of the dead bodies on the ground. Some of the bodies are having hole made of machete metal at back of their necks, and the robots are putting their cords into these holes and standing still, and light is pulsing like river from bodies to the robots, and I am asking the robot who is feeding me what they are doing, and the robot is telling me they are remembering. But when it is saying remembering it is also saying downloading the digital information stored in the braincases of the dead and restoring the sensory data that has not been damaged beyond repair; we are collecting all of the data encapsulating their memories from their earliest moments until the time of their death. And, at the same time as it is saying these other thing, it is also saying, We are gathering their names.
“What is my name?” I am asking the robot, even though I am not moving my lip.
Uzo, it is telling me.
“What is your name?”
Enyemaka, it is telling me, then it is making me to be looking at all the other robot that is hunching over body and gathering names. We are all Enyemaka.
CHAPTER
5